There are approximately one billion sheep in the world today, and China has the most. Their wool is the most commonly used fiber in the world. They have been the subject of the most popular and beloved nursery rhymes, children’s songs, and fairy tales, and President Woodrow Wilson kept sheep on the White House lawn, and sold their wool to the Red Cross during World War I.
Lambs, sheep, flocks, shepherds. The imagery is not just useful for Bible geeks, but even in 2015 sheep herding is a thriving business. You can see flocks of sheep grazing on hills of rich, succulent grass in Switzerland, feeding on scrub in the loneliest parts of the Sahara desert, or picking at nubs of crabgrass alongside a busy thoroughfare in cities like Tunis. Flocks will hold up one-road traffic in Scotland or dirt paths in the Algerian desert – and don’t bother honking. Perhaps no other animal has occupied the place in world culture that sheep and shepherding have.
The Bible has more imagery of sheep than any other animal. Look up “sheep” in a concordance and you’ll find 189 references to sheep in the King James Version, compared to 133 references to cattle, 105 to horses, 96 to goats, and 47 to camels. The New International Version has a similar breakdown. Of the 189 references to sheep, around 25% of them aren’t literal references to sheep, but compare people to sheep – usually in terms of their vulnerability or their tendency to wander aimlessly away from the safety of the shepherd.
Here’s how important (and numerous!) sheep are in the Bible narrative:
There were 675,000 sheep numbered as plunder for Israel after one of their battles. That’s a lot of shawarma! Solomon offered one hundred twenty thousand sheep as a sacrifice to God after he built the Temple! God told Israel how – in a familiar example of wealth – He would bless them with lots of sheep. The Israelites were told to take care of each others’ sheep – not just to watch them stray away and act like they didn’t see it. And Solomon, in his Song, compares the teeth of a beautiful woman to sheep who have just been shorn. (Note: This is not a recommended line for dating: unless your date is a bedouin, comparing her teeth to newly-barbered sheep could lead to trouble).
Finally, Isaiah, in some of the most beautiful (and tragic) imagery in all of literature, compares humanity to sheep and our Savior to a lamb being sacrificed.
Some of the most poignant imagery for Christians, however, probably comes from Jesus when He asserts Himself as the spiritual Shepherd of His people. In John 10, Jesus gave a detailed picture of Himself as the one true, Good Shepherd – everyone else is a falsity (or a “contractor,” one who doesn’t own the sheep, but watches it for money), and there is one who actually wants to kill, steal, and destroy the sheep. But He, the sheep’s rightful owner, will in short order give up His own life for them.
Later, Jesus was approached by some inquisitive Jews (was there any other kind?) at the Feast of the Dedication. They asked if He was the Messiah. And in an answer that was not nearly as drawn-out as the story of the Good Shepherd, Jesus actually gave a lesson in what it means to be His sheep (John 10:27):
My sheep listen to my voice, I recognize them, they follow me.
The life of a Christian can be summed up in those twelve words: the follower of Christ listens to Christ’s voice; Christ knows who they are; and they (quite naturally) follow Him. This is what it boils down to for the sheep of His pasture.
We Christians, especially in western society, can really make a mess of things when it comes to “how to follow Christ.” We’re either too strict or too permissive; either too lazy or too zealous; we are self-absorbed yet loving, ignorant yet know right from wrong, and the fire within us to follow Christ seems more like a gas-lit stove than one of those ancient torches that stays lit in the darkest caves (“man, the pilot light is busted again – sorry, God”).
In other words, we’re just like sheep.
Take a look at the three key words Jesus focused on:
Listen
Does it boggle your mind how many people do not, or cannot, simply listen these days? I’m sure it will eventually be the subject of a rant post, but the number of people who actually listen to me when I’m talking to them seems to be dwindling by the day. I encounter people all the time, of all ages, who don’t have a single neuron devoted to what is coming out of my mouth. Instead, they are in “waiting” mode – something your computer does, one process waiting while the other finishes before it runs – waiting for me to finish so they can say what they’ve been dying to say ever since I opened my mouth.
I know Jesus experiences this. Sometimes it’s us trying to “pray,” thinking that Prayer = Words. Technically, that may be true, in the “I pray thee,” or “I implore you, ask you” to do something sense. But prayer as communication with God is like the proverbial iceberg: mere words are what we experience with our senses (hear), but so much more lies underneath in the act. Without “solitude” and “quietude,” or solitary, quiet reflection on everything from God’s greatness to His goodness to me, to meditation on my current state, prayer is a monologue, a rambling list of things thrown up to the Great Vending Machine In The Sky.
Here, though, Christ doesn’t rant (like I do) about people not listening: He matter-of-factly states, “my sheep listen” – as if to not listen is to put ourselves outside the fold. Remembering that God already knows what we’re going to say before we say it (thus negating the implicit assertion that what we’re about to say is earth-bendingly important and demands a listen), we must take serious His statement that we listen to Him.
Recognition
Now – the counterpoint to the above is the fact that when we do speak – and there is plenty of Biblical instruction that we should come to Him, using our words – He recognizes us! I think, however, that when we take a verse like this – “my sheep listen, I recognize their voice, they follow me” – we have to take all or nothing. We can’t say, “I’m not going to talk, I’m just going to listen from now on,” or “Well, I’ve never been good at listening, but I like that He recognizes me.” These are characteristics of Christ’s sheep, not take-it-or-leave-it suggestions. One of the saddest commentaries in Scripture is Christ’s characterization of those who continued deceiving themselves until the very last day that they were “in” with Christ, but had been busy doing their own thing. What follows is the opposite of what we’re saying here: Christ says, “I never knew you.” If it’s true that Christ won’t recognize us if we’ve spent our lives not doing His will, then the statement here bears out that, if we listen to Him, He becomes intimately familiar with who we are.
Follow
The last statement actually wraps up this trilogy of life-altering words. We listen – first, to Christ’s call to salvation, then continue listening as we are led by Him; He recognizes us as His sheep, and continues taking great care of us. And these two, taken properly and together, quite naturally become our normal state: we follow Christ. We’ve already seen how we can’t truly follow Christ without listening to Him; and we can’t truly be His unless He recognizes us. So this is all wrapped up in the simultaneous act, as we listen and as we are recognized, of following Christ.
Stop alongside a pasture sometime where sheep are grazing, or where there is a flock of sheep being led somewhere, and observe it for a moment. Watch how the sheep follow the shepherd. Watch how they graze. Except when I saw a couple of rams fighting (pretty majestic, I must say), I never saw anxious, hurried, or overly-preoccupied sheep – say, intent on jumping the fence and getting outta there. They were just…there. All was in balance. They knew how to listen to their shepherd. Their shepherd obviously recognized them.
And they followed him.
Categories: Living Christianically
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